Spurs Cruise Past Sixers

PHILADELPHIA -- The San Antonio Spurs showed the Philadelphia 76ers how to do it their way.

Danny Green scored 18 points, Tony Parker had 14 and the Spurs rolled to an easy 109-85 victory over the 76ers on Monday night.

The defending Western Conference champions are off to a 7-1 start following consecutive wins in New York and Philadelphia.

"It's been pretty good basketball for us," Green said. "We're moving the ball, cleaned things up defensively and we're headed in the right direction."

Evan Turner scored 20 points and Spencer Hawes had 17 for the Sixers, who couldn't give coach Brett Brown a better effort in his first game against his former team.

Brown spent 11 years in San Antonio, including seven as an assistant under Gregg Popovich and was part of the team's four championships.

(Listen to Sixers beat writer Bob Cooney discuss the Sixers early season success)

"That's the Spurs and that's what we aspire to get to," Brown said.

Popovich didn't enjoy the experience.

"It's no fun at all," he said. "If you win, you sort of feel bad. If you lose, you sort of feel happy for him. It's a weird feeling because you're supposed to want to win. When I coached against Larry (Brown), we both hated it every time."

The Spurs didn't even need Tim Duncan, who was given a rest in the second of back-to-back games.

The surprising Sixers are 4-4, a far better start than expected. Oddsmakers predicted they would win fewer than 17 games this season.

"The biggest thing we take away is their unselfishness on both sides of the ball," Hawes said. "They sell out defensively and they're excited about making that extra pass on offense. We run the same offense. You look at the way they did it and say: `That's how it's supposed to be."

Duncan, the three-time NBA Finals MVP, had 11 points and 10 rebounds in Sunday's 120-89 rout of the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

This one was pretty much the same kind of laugher.

The Sixers missed their first seven shots, and the Spurs closed out the first quarter on a 14-0 run to take a 31-13 lead. Seven players scored for San Antonio in the opening 12 minutes, and that was just the start.

In a reversal, the Spurs missed their first seven shots in the second quarter, while the Sixers went on a 10-0 run to get within 31-23 following Turner's 3-pointer.

Boris Diaw ended that run with a layup and a hook shot. Green then hit a 3 to give the Spurs a double-digit lead for good, 46-34.

They were up 19 at halftime and increased the lead to 29 by the middle of the third quarter. All the starters were on the bench by the start of the fourth quarter.

"We were not playing that well the previous four games," Manu Ginobili said. "But in New York and here, we really took care of business from minute one. We made it look easy."

The Spurs had more 3-pointers (13) than free throws attempted (11).

Six players scored in double figures for San Antonio, including Kawhi Leonard (13) andMarco Belinelli (12).

"He's a young kid and sometimes he defers to everybody else on the court," Popovich said of Leonard. "We talked about it at halftime and he did his thing."

Rookie Michael Carter-Williams had a season-low eight points on 2-for-11 shooting for Philadelphia.

Game notes

Brown had a steady stream of visitors in his office before the game, including Parker. Brown had dinner with Popovich and the Spurs staff on Sunday night. ... The Sixers have trailed by double digits in six of their games this season. ... The Spurs have won the last five games vs. Philadelphia. ... The Spurs are 4-1 when scoring over 100 points.